Summer Vacation - Part I

In May we flew back to AZ for 2 weeks to visit family. The main reason for our visit was that my brother Tanner was coming home from his mission in Thailand. We started our vacation out by staying with Craig's parents for a few days. We really enjoyed their pool! It was already starting to hit 100 degrees when we got there. We left high 60-low 70 degree temperatures and came to high 90-low 100. So the pool felt REALLY nice. (Our bodies have already adjusted to living in a colder climate, we were dying there!) Craig's parents were also nice enough to take us out to a few of our favorite AZ restaurants, including Weinerschnitzel and Rubio's. They don't have a lot of our favorites back east :( We visited Craig's old work and rented some movies - that no one could seem to stay awake during. Paul Blart Mall Cop - yeah, big thumbs down. We rented some other's too, but with the time change it was difficult to keep our eyes open! 8pm felt like 11pm for us. Or maybe the movies were just that bad because Craig's parents couldn't stay awake either! Oh well, it was fun to watch everyone doze in and out of sleep on the couch :) I think Craig's the only one that made it through an entire movie without falling asleep. We also hit the dollar toy section in Wal-Mart to get the kids a little something to play with one afternoon. And of course Grandpa Marc made a great wrestling buddy!


My brother Tanner came home on a Friday night. His homecoming was a big deal for our family. It had been nearly 4 years since we had all been together. My brother Cameron who had served his mission in Hong Kong had been out for 23 months when Tanner left for Thailand for 24 months. Making it 3 years and 11 months since we had all been together! So it was a special homecoming for all of us!
All of my brothers. You can see how excited Cameron (in the green) is to see Tanner. Awwww....
Tanner had to catch a few different planes to make it home from Thailand. The last leg of his flight went from LA to Phoenix. My parents surprised him and met him in LA so that he would have someone to fly home with. He walked right past them in the LA airport! And then he stopped and was like, "Wait, I think that was my dad???" I would have loved to have seen his face! You could tell that Tanner hadn't really been around too many kids in Thailand. As a missionary you're not allowed to. So when Chase came flying at him with a hug here was Tanner's reaction: It was funny - he was trying to hold Chase out away from him. You can see the awkward position of Chase's legs dangling behind him. We told him it was ok to give his nephew a hug :)

I love Tanner's face in this picture. His lips are sucked in. You can almost read his thoughts. Maybe he was thinking "Holy Cow (he says that a lot) look at all these people (there were a lot of friends and family)! I can't believe I'm home. This is so weird!"

Oh, and ladies . . . . . he's single :)

Shortly after Tanner got home we took off to San Diego for a few days. We stayed at the Lawrence Welks Resort. My parents rented 2 condos for the whole family. Each of our little families had their own suite. It was nice! And the scenery was beautiful. I wish I had taken some pictures! They had a great pool with a big water slide that Chase just went on over and over and over. We spent a day in Sea World. We saw the Sea Lions show:

And of course Shamu
Mallory and Grandpa Alan
Waiting to get on the wet rapids ride - Background is Natalie, Jason, and Tanner. Foreground is Craig, me, and Chase.

And I found some Holly Berries that I wanted to take a picture with. I don't recall ever seeing real ones before. Excuse the hair - we just got off the soaking wet water ride
Chase entertaining his cousin Callie
Clark and Craig
We played the "throw the ring and try to get it around the neck of a Coke bottle to win a larger than life stuffed animal that will probably end up in the garbage anyway" game. Tanner won. Tanner ALWAYS wins at games like that! Apparently he hasn't lost his touch even after a 2-year mission.

How we all felt at the end of the day:

All of us at the end of the day!


It was a fun vacation. We miss living near our families. We don't miss the heat :) Nope, not one bit . . . . .

Toothless

Chase has lost ANOTHER tooth! They're falling out like crazy!! He has lost 3 teeth in the past 2 weeks, and another one is loose. He got his first 2 teeth at 8 weeks so it doesn't really surprise me that they're falling out this early. He lost his first 2 teeth at age 4. He got his 6-year molars a few months ago. (He's not 6 yet, those came early too.) And now 3 more have fallen out with one not far behind! He's making a living off of loosing teeth! The tooth fairy has been camping out on the front porch just waiting for Chase to lose another one! ;) Here's some pics of the cutest, gappiest smile around -



(The tooth is in the treasure chest - in case it was hard to see in the first picture)

All Grown Up

Yesterday was Chase's first day of school. Kind of. He only went for an hour and Craig and I got to go with him. We got to meet his teacher and she oriented us on what Chase would be doing throughout the day.

Chase is not shy at all! He walked right in and introduced himself - without any prompting from us. Showed his teacher his missing tooth and asked if he could color. Just like they were old friends. I don't think he'll have any problems being comfortable there. He makes friends fast and is easy to get along with!

Today is his first day to go to school without us. I really did ok all morning while I helped get him ready. He got to pick what he wanted put in his lunch box. He got to pick out his clothes. And we went over being polite and having good manners at school. I was doing fine until we had our morning devotional.

Throughout my childhood my mother always did a morning devotional with us before we left for school. We would sing a Primary song or a hymn (the older we got). She had a scripture of the month that she would type up on a piece of paper and we would say it. By the end of the month we had the scripture memorized. Looking back I realize that this helped prepare us for scripture mastery for those seminary years! And then we would pray together. This little devotional only took all of 5 minutes. I didn't always like having this as part of our morning routine growing up. Power Rangers came on right before school and me and my brothers were REALLY into it. We never missed it! Well, we never missed the first 25 minutes of the show that is. Mom would always turn the TV off 5 minutes before the show ended to have our morning devotional. We would express our complaints, "Mom!! We just want to see what happens! You never let us watch the end!" And she would respond with, "I can tell you what happens. The Power Rangers win. They always win!" Which would in turn provoke more grumbling from us. We would have our devotional and then she would send us out the door to school.

Last month's Ensign actually had an article on having a morning devotional each day. The article is entitled Opening the Heavens (if you're interested in looking it up). Reading this article brought back memories of the devotionals we used to have as kids. After much thought I decided that this was something I wanted to do for my children as well. I sincerely appreciate my mother for taking a few minutes out of her busy morning to help us feel the Spirit before the start of our busy day. In a sense these morning devotionals suited us up in our spiritual armor before we ventured out into the world for the day. I can still recall certain scriptures we memorized and the words to hymns that are not commonly sung because of this time spent with my mother in the mornings.

So 5 minutes before we left this morning, me and the kids knelt in a circle. We sang a Primary song, read a scripture, and said a prayer together. I cried through the whole devotional! I was hit with the realization that not only is Chase all grown up, but I am now in my mother's shoes. I am the one sending my kid out the door. Just wanting to give him a little taste of the Spirit before he leaves and faces the outside world, hoping I've taught him enough.

We pulled up to the school and Chase jumped out of the car closing his door without grabbing his backpack or lunch box! He was too excited! I had to say, "Bye, Chase" FOUR times before the teacher with Chase finally bent down and told him to tell his mother goodbye! He'll do fine without me. And yes, I'm sure - eventually - I'll do fine without him, but for now I am missing him terribly!! His cute, toothless smile now gets to brighten his teacher's day. What a lucky lady she is to get to spend most of the day with my Chase :)

Don't Break the Ice

We finished dinner early last night and decided to break out the old school games that Craig and I used to play as kids. We found them at Wal-Mart for $5 and couldn't pass them up! We actually purchased them 3 years ago, but our kids are just now getting to the point where they are of age and can play them together. Do you remember Don't Spill the Beans, Ants in the Pants, Cootie, and Don't Break the Ice? Classics!! So we settled on playing Don't Break the Ice. If you've never played it before, the idea of the game is to NOT make the ice skater fall. You don't want to knock him down. If you do - you lose! We let Clark in on the game. He's below the age suggestion on the side of the box, but how hard is it to hit ice blocks with a little plastic mallet? He loved it! The problem was we couldn't get him to give the mallet up after his turn. Seriously, the only way we could get the mallet out of his hands was to rip it out. He refused to let go otherwise. As you'll see in the video, Chase became somewhat aggressive about getting the mallet away from Clark. But, this was the only way anyone else got a turn! This was a little bit of an emotional game for Clark. I kind of felt bad that he just cried when it's not his turn. But he had so much fun when it was his turn!! He also thought the coolest thing was to smash the ice in as hard as he could. Of course he's too young to understand that he's not supposed to knock the ice skater down, so he had the most fun just banging and smashing! When the box says ages 3 and up, they mean it. Poor Clark can't handle taking turns yet!

In this first video, Clark gets upset everytime the mallet is not in his hands! He cries and reaches for it when Chase and Mallory take their turns. When it's his turn again he has to position the little ice table just right. He also likes to talk to the little ice skater man. It's like he's buttering him up a little bit before he wacks him off the ice!


In this video after Clark takes his turn and it's time to pass the mallet to Chase he takes off into the kitchen with the mallet!


In this video - after Chase takes his turn, watch Clark's face. It's really Mallory's turn, but Clark makes a grab for the mallet and his face is classic!

Plunge

We're here! Sorry for the lack of posting this summer. We've been either vacationing or extremely busy. And when we haven't been doing either of those . . . . we've just been lazy or recuperating (however you want to look at it!). Anyway, I will be posting soon on our two recent summer vacations. So check back soon!

Last week, I was reading upstairs about 8:30pm. We had already put Clark and Mallory to bed. Chase gets to stay up a half hour later until Clark falls asleep so they don't stay up giggling. Craig and Chase usually play the Wii or watch a cool Discovery show together. It's their male bonding time. I had heard Chase tell Craig that he had to take a break and go to the bathroom. So Chase was going to the bathroom . . . . takin' care of his business. He had been in there awhile when I hear from upstairs:

Chase: Uh, Dad? I think there's a problem. A bad problem.

My ears were perked and I could hear Craig getting up off the couch to go see what the issue was.

Then I hear:

Craig: Ah, Chase! (And then a chuckle.)

I'm thinking: So is there a problem or is something funny? Craig sounded tense and then he laughed.

Then all I could hear from upstairs was a bunch of fast chatter from Chase, Craig said a few things back, a flushing toilet, the water running in the sink. I couldn't make out their conversation, but I hear Craig tell Chase to go upstairs and tell me what happened.

Chase gets to me and proceeds to tell me. . . . .

Chase: Mom, I was going potty and there was this bug crawling on the floor and he was scary, but I was going potty and I didn't want that bug to get me. So I just grabbed that plunger and I doot doot (hands fisted on top of each other thrusting downwards). And I plunged that bug. Then I picked up the plunger and that bug was still crawling. So I put the plunger back on him and I plunged and I plunged and I plunged that bug. Then I moved it to see if he was moving. And he was moving so I plunged him again and I just ripped up the floor with the plunger. But not the whole floor, just a little bit of the floor like this (he traced a square in the air with his index finger). Sorry Mom, but I got that bug.

Me (trying not to laugh hysterically): So the bug is dead?

Chase: Yeah, he's dead. I just plunged him.

Me (making sure I had the story straight): But you ripped up the floor. . . . with the plunger?

Chase: Yeah, sorry mom, but it was only a little bit of the floor. Not all of it.

Me (still trying not to laugh): That's ok. Daddy can fix. I'm just glad that bug didn't get you.

He kissed me goodnight and went to bed after that.

I went downstairs and Craig and I had a good laugh! What else was a 5-year old boy going to use to kill a bug while dangling his bum over the potty at the same time? I checked out the damage to the bathroom floor. He had just plunged up one tile. Nothing a little glue can't fix :)

If you're thinking about replacing your flooring. . . . . . don't break the bank paying someone to rip up the old flooring for you. A $3 plunger from Target and a little plunging action should do the trick!

I took these pics later. It's something we'll want to remember :)

Ages and Stages

We just got Clark's 18 month pictures taken! I can't believe he's already been a part of our family for a year and a half. I swear the more kids you have the busier you are, the faster life moves. It seems like Clark wasn't a baby for as long as the older two! Since he's our last we are trying to soak up the moments with him. We find ourselves saying, "This is the last time we'll have to go through 'this' stage." Whatever 'this' may be; sleepless nights, making bottles, baby food jars, lugging around a baby carrier, changing crib sheets, cleaning high chairs, etc. We are done with all of those stages! Some stages we are happy to see go and some we will miss. Clark still belly laughs from the gut. It's the sweetest, happiest sound for ears to hear. I hope he doesn't lose that for a long time! We miss the snuggles. It was sad to see those go. Every now and then we get lucky and he'll cuddle up for a few moments on the couch, but for the most part, he's out grown the snuggling. We miss the waddling stage, when they first learn to walk. We will miss seeing the look on our baby's face the first time they figure out how to splash in the bathtub. Yes, Clark still loves to splash, but there's something about the FIRST time they figure out they have the power to truly soak the bathroom floor using just their wee little hands and a downward smacking motion! Some things we haven't missed. We only carry a little tiny diaper bag. We don't miss having to pack half the house and take it with us every where we go. Don't miss sleepless nights. Don't miss the baby carrier. Gosh those things are heavy and awkward to carry!! Don't miss the baby throw up. My boys were the worst! We are looking forward to no more diapers. Clark is already showing signs that he may be an early potty trainer. Let's hope . . . . . we deserve at least one of our children to potty train easily!! We are looking forward to our kids being able to buckle their own seat belts. Chase can do his, but we still have to do Mallory and Clark's. We can't wait for the day to just be able to pile in the car and go! It's interesting how quickly you move through all the stages whether you like them or not!

Clark is learning to adjust in the 2 new stages that he is going through right now. About 2 weeks ago we moved him into a normal bed. After watching him come this close (put your thumb and index finger very close together) to climbing out of his crib we decided to put him in a bed. I know some babies climb out of their cribs and they escape just fine. Some climb out and end up with broken legs and get caught dangling between the bars. We decided to skip possible medical expenses from Clark making a "prison break" and went straight for putting him in a bed. Even if he won't stay in it. We didn't want to risk him hurting himself. He stays in the bed if he's really tired. He's actually great at nap time! But most of the time at night we have to sit by his bedside and tell him to "lay down, it's night night" or he just keeps getting out. We usually have to sit there about 20 minutes or so until he's almost asleep. But he's getting used to it. Slowly, but surely. It's only been 2 weeks. It will take some time. We had forgotten what a long process this can be!! We're up for new ideas if anybody wants to share how you keep your toddler in bed. It's been 2 years since we've done this!

Clark's first week in the nursery class at church was Easter Sunday. He hates it to say the least. When we walk out he SCREAMS!! We have tried telling him "Bye-bye, we'll be back in a little bit to come get you." And we have tried sneaking out. Neither method has worked so far. As tough as the little guy is, he's very clingy! He's always been clingy! We didn't have one single issue with Chase. His first Sunday in the nursery he walked right in like he owned the place and he never looked back. Mallory we only had to stay about the first 10 minutes until she got situated playing then we stepped out. We only had to do that the first 4 or 5 Sundays and she was fine after that. Clark is not showing any signs of being ok with being left. Of course it's only been 2 weeks, we know it will take time for him to adjust. He's also been left with a sitter the least. We moved out here to NJ and we don't get out much so he's not used to being left with anyone on a regular basis. I think that might be part of the problem. We may have brought this on ourselves. Clark really likes men and all the nursery workers are female. So he might be having a hard time with that. Last week they had a man in there helping and Clark actually cried himself to sleep on his shoulder. I felt bad. Clark drooled all over his suit! Hopefully he'll adjust soon! We keep telling ourselves these things just take time and a lot of patience! No more walking the halls with a baby at church. We actually get to go to class. I can't decide whether or not I'm going to miss this stage. Sometimes it makes church seem to last FOREVER when you're just walking the halls with a baby/young toddler who won't let you sit through a class. Sometimes it's nice to socialize and relate to other parents who are also in the hallway with a child the same age. Sometimes it's some good one on one time with you and your baby to just play in the foyer with a few toys. Moving on from this stage is bittersweet. . . . I almost feel like I'm the one growing up.

We also got a picture of all the kids together when we took Clark to get his 18 month pics done. It turned out ok. We have been trying to get a picture of the kids together for awhile, but we can't get Clark to sit still long enough and have them all looking at the camera. (There's a stage to look forward to - when we can all look at the camera and smile without having a wrestling match!) Clark was supposed to be standing in the middle, but started walking away. Chase caught his hand, and at least they're all looking and smiling! I love Chase in this picture. He has his arm around Mallory and he's holding Clark's hand. He just looks like the perfect big brother making sure his younger siblings are taken care of. I love this about Chase!

Our Easter

We had a great Easter this year! It was nothing out of the ordinary. We did the same old things we normally do. Dye eggs, get baskets, hunt for eggs, get dressed up for church, and so on. I'll probably just post a ton of pictures - we got a lot of cute ones this year :) They're all pretty self explanatory, so here we go. We started out by dying eggs on Saturday night. Chase and Mallory really enjoyed themselves. Chase thought it was the coolest thing to put an egg into the bowl of dye by holding it above the bowl and letting it drop in while dye splashed out onto the table and floor. (Typical Chase . . . .the bigger the mess, the more fun he has.) We had to remind him several times that the dye stains and it's not a good thing to make his eggs "sky dive" into the bowl. No beuno!
Here's how Clark felt about sitting at the table to dye eggs:
He had no interest whatsoever. He threw such a big tantrum that he ended up kicking the table and knocking his chair backwards.
He's lucky the desk was behind him to break his fall or he could have ended up with a nasty headache! He also got his first taste of a hard-boiled egg. Here's how he feels about eggs:
Apparently he takes after his Grandpa Alan. He's not an egg man. Clark started gagging and making choking noises. The only thing he liked about eggs was the fact that they resembled balls. He kept pointing at them and saying, "Ball, ball." We gave him one to let him carry around and he threw it. Chase and Mallory also kept giving him their already dyed (dried) eggs. So needless to say, half of our eggs ended up severely cracked which left the Easter bunny with only a few to hide. Made for a very short hunt this year!


A Star Wars Starfighter egg for Chase. As you can see, he was thrilled!

The next morning the kids got up to get their baskets and find their eggs. The Easter bunny always leaves some candy and a couple small toys in their baskets.





The kids looked really sharp for Easter this year! I loved their outfits! Thank you Grandpa Marc and Grandma Treesa!

Chase



Mallory



Clark


And these last pictures were too cute not to post. I love that my boys have a great relationship. It shows in their faces!


We hope everyone had a great Easter!!